


Imaginary Tea Parties

by DabMyWetties



Series: Randomly Inspired Oneshots [6]
Category: Pentatonix, Superfruit
Genre: Alternate Universe, Broadway, Gender Roles, Imaginary Friends, M/M, Pastries, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-02 18:53:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11515377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DabMyWetties/pseuds/DabMyWetties
Summary: The problem with being a lonely boy is that it’s hard to host tea parties and musical plays when you’re the only one participating.





	Imaginary Tea Parties

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ragingrainbow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ragingrainbow/gifts).



> For the prompt: 
> 
> Scott has an imaginary friend as a child. As an adult he meets a man who bears a striking resemblance...

Scott was a lonely boy.

He was a nice boy, and he wasn’t an unpopular boy, but, all the same, he was a lonely boy because he didn’t much care for the games the other boys wanted to play. Green Army men and Transformers and Nerf gun battles and basketballs didn’t interest him. He didn’t want to watch wrestling and Power Rangers on TV.

No, Scott wanted to stage grand, imaginative musical plays and he wanted to host beautiful tea parties with flowery teas and delicate pastries.

He got teased for it once.

Once.

It was a learning experience. He learned not to talk about musical plays and tea parties. He learned that boys aren’t supposed to play like that. People didn’t approve. They thought it was odd, inappropriate, girly. Scott couldn’t figure out what was wrong with girls that doing something “girly” was reason to be teased but he knew that was the way the world operated. As a five year old boy he didn’t really question the why of it; he couldn’t even grasp the concept that one could ask the why of it. That’s just the way it was, like the sun rising every morning and the need for regular baths and good dental hygiene.

So he just didn’t talk about it, and so Scott was a lonely boy.

For his sixth birthday he asked for and received an Easy Bake Oven. He also received an entire trunk full of costumes for his musical plays - hats and scarves and old suit jackets and spectacles. He baked little cakes and cookies in his new oven for his tea parties and sorted his costumes neatly.

The problem with being a lonely boy is that it’s hard to host tea parties and musical plays when you’re the only one participating.

Fortunately for Scott, he made friends with Team shortly after his sixth birthday. Team was a kid about his age; sometimes Team was a boy and sometimes Team was a girl, and sometimes neither and sometimes both at the same time which Scott thought was a particularly neat trick. Whenever Scott wanted to put on a play or have a tea party, Team would head over and they would sing, drink tea, and eat delicate pastries.

He overheard his parents murmuring affectionately to one another about Team and something like “imagination friends.” Scott didn’t quite understand what they were talking about, but he did know that imagination was wonderful so he figured imagination friends were a lot like best friends, only even better. Team was his best imagination friend.

As the years passed, Scott remained a lonely boy, though still a happy boy, and Team would join him as he created ever-more complex musical plays and graduated from the Easy Bake Oven to the real grown-up oven.

All too soon Scott understood that imagination friends were imaginary friends. It was a shock to him, like when he found out Santa wasn’t real.

He cried.

He loved Team. He didn’t know who would help him write scripts for his plays or give him suggestions on how to decorate the delicate pastries or who would just sit and talk with him for hours about why the world was so strange and silly.

And even though he knew Team was just pretend, Scott still sought him out when times got tough. He knew Team was a boy at this point, but Team never cared about what the world said boys were supposed to do. Team sometimes wore a dress, or makeup, or shoes with heels; sometimes he wore a leather motorcycle jacket and big black boots.

Team didn’t give a fuck and Scott wished he could be more like Team.

Life happened. Scott graduated high school, went off to college, and got a job doing set design on Broadway.

He never really stopped thinking about Team. It was silly, he knew that. But when things got tough, or when Scott felt insecure or boxed in, sometimes he’d sit in the dark of his room at night and talk with Team. Team would always remind him to be true to himself, to do what he loved and not to feel too boxed in by the pressures of society. They’d talk out design ideas and share the wealth of delicate pastries that NYC provided. He’d talk to Team when dates went well and when boyfriends became ex-boyfriends. Somehow those good dates were still lacking and his ex-boyfriends didn’t quite live up to the willowy, dark haired free spirit his imagination had aged Team into.

Scott was a lonely man.

He was a successful man, a friendly man, and most certainly not an unpopular man. No, there was no shortage of attention, but no one wanted to hear him talk endlessly about the grand sets he designed for Broadway or to sit in comfortable silence with a cup of floral tea and a platter of delicate pastries. Scott wasn’t interested in the stock market or how the Yankees were doing this year or which iteration of some superhero movie was about to hit movie theaters.

So he kept his discussions on set design and tea to a minimum and tried to steer conversations away from sports and the stock market and found more pleasure in solitude than in the superficial bullshit he was supposed to give and take with the world around him.

At least Team was good company, silly as it may have been.

It’s a wonder, then, that Scott remains standing the day the cast of the new musical production he’s working on walks into the theater for a run-through with the completed set pieces.

One of the supporting actors looks achingly familiar. Scott can’t tear his eyes away, not even when the man catches him staring.

He looks like Team come to life. He’s tall and graceful with dark hair and a fluidity to his movements that makes Scott want to write about a hundred grand musical plays just for him to star in. He’s wearing eyeliner and high heeled boots.

Scott’s never written poetry but suddenly he wants to.

When it’s his turn to speak, to go over the specifics of his various set pieces and what will go where and when, Scott feels like he’s back in the darkness of his bedroom describing everything to Team. He’s often a little shy when he has to do this, worried that he’ll blather on for too long or go into too much detail, but today he feels confident.

After the run-through is over, Scott loses sight of the mystery man in the chaos. Disappointment flares. He reminds himself that the show will likely run for at least six months so he’ll have plenty of time to work up the nerve to say hello.

But, then.

“Hi, Scott?” comes an oddly familiar voice from behind him, and Scott turns around and there he is. “These sets are amazing. You designed them all?”

He’s still confident from earlier, comfortable with the subject matter, and he’s happy to talk to anyone about it. He does, for a few minutes at least, not wanting to bore this man who looks like everything he’s ever wanted.

“But I can talk about it for hours,” Scott wraps up, hesitation taking over now. No one wants to talk endlessly about set design. “You’re playing Johan, right?” he asks.

The man who looks like Team smiles, seemingly pleased at the recognition. “I am, yes. Most people just call me Mitch, though. How did you make the balcony for Act 4 look like it’s floating in midair?”

Team’s name is Mitch.

Too soon people are leaving the theater and Scott is still answering questions about his sets. Mitch wants to hear every detail of his set design, and to know what else he’s worked on, and Scott doesn’t want the conversation to end but he’s not sure how to keep it going. Surely no one wants to hear about set design for hours.

But, then.

“Um, so,” Mitch says quietly. “I heard about this new tea house that’s open late. They’re supposed to have the best pastries in the city. Do you maybe want to go grab something and continue our conversation…?”

Scott does want to do that.

  



End file.
